Real life and the poker wave, by Joe Cada

It seems for me that poker comes in spurts and waves. The only live poker I've played since my disappointing World Series this year (don't worry guys, I'm not complaining - but I am allowed to be disappointed) has been a trip to Brazil, which was also somewhat disappointing, although a great experience.

I took a long break from online poker, because right before the World Series I had been getting hammered online. I decided to pick it up again right before this year's WCOOP on PokerStars, and things started working out a bit better for me. As far as cash games go, I had been logging a lot of hours playing $25/$50 and $50/$100 heads-up. There are a lot of heads-up rounders that play on PokerStars, so I was having a decent time horsing around with those guys. I've had some decent sized swings, but overall I'm up slightly. This is a lot better than the way things had been going.

I had a decent WCOOP, with a couple of cashes, and a fifth place final table appearance in one of the second chance tourneys. Those second chance tourneys are on par with a lot of other big online tourneys, so I was pretty pleased to run that deep in one of them. I actually had 16 cashes in online tournaments on PokerStars in the month of September, and two fifth place finishes. One for about $8k and the other for more than $14k. It feels nice to finally be back in the black online.

Speaking of online, later this month, I'll be playing in the FCOOP - which is same as the WCOOP but it's exclusive to French players. I'm pretty excited about that. Now people can tell me what a luckbox I am in French too!

Even though it can get ridiculously hot in Michigan, it sure beats the massive amounts of snow we get in the winter, so right before the WCOOP, I tried to enjoy what was left of the summer, and went up to northern Michigan to spend Labor Day weekend with my girlfriend and her family up by the lake. Her family is really good to me, and we had a blast jet-skiing around the lake - even though we had to wear wetsuits. Pretty soon it'll be snowsuits.

I've also spent a lot of time looking for a new house. I haven't really bought anything since my win at the WSOP (I bought the house I'm living in with poker winnings back when I was 19) and I've been looking to get into a bit nicer place. I've probably looked at 40 houses over the last couple of months. I'm specifically looking for a place that either has a pool or room to put one in (so I guess, if that's the case, I'll have to also get a shovel...), a room where I can put in a home gym, and I really want to have a spot to put in a tiny movie theatre. So far I've made offers on four houses, and for every single one, it seems that an offer was accepted mere hours before I made mine, which is pretty crazy for this market. I'm not sweating it too much, I guess just none of them were meant to be.

Speaking of sweating it, I got a dog right after this year's World Series, and he put me in a bit of a stressful situation at Petco yesterday. His name is Bosco, and while I keep him at my house, he belongs to me and my girlfriend. In case you were wondering, he's named after the delicious "Bosco Sticks" you get at Bosco's pizza here in Michigan. You might think it's weird to name your dog after a food, but trust me, once you've had Bosco's, you'd probably understand. Anyways, yesterday we took him to Petco. He had just had a bunch of shots at the vet, so we decided to take him for some treats. Well, let's just say that he didn't really understand the concept of the fact that even though the store is dedicated to pets - you're really still not supposed to go to the bathroom in there. Twice. Luckily he's so cute or else he'd probably have gotten us into some real trouble.

I haven't decided whether or not I'm playing Bellagio this month, but if not, I'll be at the NAPT in Los Angeles in November for sure. Until then, you'll probably catch me online here and there (jcada99). Also, Halloween's later this month, which I love, so I'll probably have some good stories from there...